I erased a comment from an anonymous coward that was left on the thread below. I have a hunch of course who left it. Funny thing, most people know that Ellen is not my favorite person in the world. But at the end of the day I would go to battle for her. Whatever else she is she's on the correct side and she is doing good work. Which are 2 things Ranger...err... Anonymous has never been or never done.
This whole incident to me is equally sad and eye opening. Some real good can come of this. We can see the pro life frauds for what they are and what they are is anything but pro life.
Until the kid is born they shout about their beliefs from the highest roof tops and then once he's born they no longer care.
Where once his life was a precious thing now it's just a drain on their pocket books. The same people who preach about the sanctity of his life now bitch about the cost of his health care and his schooling and his well being. Why should they have to pay? Pro life must have it's limits you know.
Then when the child reaches 16 or 17 he's hungry he robs a store and the robbery goes wrong and he kills a clerk. The very same pro life warriors are the first at the court house with signs yelling KILL HIM! KILL HIM! FLIP THE SWITCH! these people are a sick joke on America.
7 comments:
The only difference between the Christian Right and the Islamic fundamentalists is that both sides live on opposite sides of the earth.
Weighing in at the Count's request, and because I have been dwelling on this matter for much of the day and trying to collect my thoughts.
I have never felt the so-called "pro-life" movement was genuinely honest in its goals, because its opposition to abortion under any circumstances has always been coupled with an equally fervent opposition to comprehensive sex education and ready access to birth control. If your REAL goal is to ensure that every child enters the world loved and welcomed, then you provide accurate information to those in a position to procreate about how to avoid conception, including educating them on the dangers of unprotected intercourse. You don't rely on abstinence lessons and "purity balls" to keep them in line. That's just blind wishful thinking, dressed up as piety.
That the "pro-lifers" have not been able to hold these two concepts - abortion and prevention - in balance tells me all that I need to know about their actual purpose. It's not remotely about the kids, or they'd be first in line at the adoption agencies. Their agenda is to do their utmost to ensure that the woman's reproductive choices and/or sexual independence are nil, and solidly under the control, explicit or implied, of the male half of the equation. It's not a moral or a compassionate issue. It's all about control/power and the status quo.
As for your statements about this faction not giving a tinker's damn about the children once they're actually born, Count, I think you're spot-on. Who are the first in line to object to housing assistance and job training for single mothers, to day care programs and easier access to pre-natal care and, for that matter, to things like HeadStart and after-school programs for young kids? The same folks who are waving their reactionary signs outside Planned Parenthood offices. The fetus is sacrosanct. The kid cyring because he doesn't have anything for dinner, not so much. In this aspect of the discussion, I believe there is an element of class warfare in play. The lower-class woman who has children is virtuous while pregnant, but a drain on society once an actual mother. It's all about the transport, not the arrival.
See Part 2, below:
I once worked for a software company owned and run by a trio of brothers of highly evangelical stripe. Prayer at the company Christmas (never "holiday") party was blatant. A co-worker once gasped in horror when I described something - I thought, pretty mildly - as "godawful." (Yeah, I know. In retrospect, I wonder how I lasted there as long as I did without choking. Irony saved me, I think...) And they were the most horrible hypocrites I can begin to describe, because although they employed lots of young mothers as software trainers and customer support staff, presumably because they felt they would be cheaper, they simultaneously wouldn't lift a finger - even though they were for some years THE major employer in that small town - to financially support the local day care effort that I ended up volunteer grant-writing for, apparently because something in their psyches told them that any Decent Christian Woman would be at home caring for her kids herself, not some kind of vile Working Woman like the employees they frankly exploited.
As for the violence the "pro-lifers" advocate and, in cases like this, commit, I find it both reprehensible and indefensible. If you honestly hold life to be sacred, then you don't EVER encourage, much less applaud, the taking of life, no matter whose. No matter your supposed rationale. No matter which preacher's sermon you try to fall back on.
I think Jonathan is also completely on point with this when he calls out "fundamentalists" of all sorts as being at the core of the issue. ET Spouse has long maintained that "over-enthusiasm" has been behind many of the world's ills, and I think he's right. Commit so fervently to any one belief or ideology that it's ALL that you live or breathe...it makes you dangerous and unstable. It damages society. It harms reasonable people whose beliefs and views never touch you or your beliefs and views.
I wish I understood what prompts people to want to enforce their own creed and perspective on everyone else around them, rather than celebrating that so many diverse viewpoints really CAN live in harmony if they choose to do so. If I had that key insight at my disposal, you can bet I would be doing all I could to encourage more live-and-let-live as opposed to my-way-or-the-highway.
On the whole I think the world is beginning to trend in that more tolerant direction. That's a good thing.
I hope this incident doesn't turn into a match in a dynamite factory, though. The wingnuttians have been frothing for a while now. I worry that this will be the issue that sends them off the deep end for real, with catastrophic consequences...
I hope I'm wrong.
I think you are correct in everything you say ET.
We've heard from his puppet master Randell Terry who of course spouted nonsense but I wonder what Alan "I hate my own daughter" Keyes had to say about today.
We're going to see an awful lot of ugliness play out in the wake of this murder, Count, make no mistake. It will separate the wheat from the chaff in a major way, hopefully.
Well I am going to call it a night. Let there be no doubt that of the two groups the Fiscal Cons and Social Cons the Fiscal cons I can have a good laugh but I can also in most circumstances break bread with. The Socials Cons freeze my innards solid.
Thanks for defending me Count. I appreciate supporters such as yourself who routinely defend newshounds and our moderators.
Ellen
Post a Comment